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PvMP fast balance passes

Hey folks, Vastin here.

As you can no doubt tell, we've been going through the motions but PvMP has been overlooked for a while due to our focus on the player side and Mordor.

While adjustments were made for the general bump in power level, the creeps have nevertheless been left behind. They got the same base level bump that the players did, but unsurprisingly, the players stat jumps were compounded by benefits from several sources (base, gear, IL's, essences, traits, audacity, etc), that outpaced the relatively few sources that creeps are designed with.

I want to take some time over the next month or two to make a series of fast passes over the creep dps and toughness sources to bring them back into line and get a better sense of what that compounded factor is so that we can work it into their advancement in future updates. It's much easier to approach PvMP balance from the creep side, because the statistics that make up a monster player are far fewer and I can rapidly iterate on their relative strength very rapidly in a way that I absolutely cannot do with the Freeps.

I will be using a bracketing method, so expect some slightly wild swings on Bullroarer as I work to re-discover some equilibrium. It'll be fun, and hopefully with your feedback we can get the ettenmoors back into a competitive shape.

I will also be looking at trying to get the dps/vitality ratios of the two sides more similar looking, so that one side isn't a huge bag of HP with low DPS and vice versa - it's much easier to manage balance when the two sides are using sets of numbers that at least resemble each other.

First pass will be a pretty major bump to creep DPS, as that is clearly anemic at the moment compared to the NPC vitality in the area. This ought to show up as soon as we begin testing 21.3, but my goal is to make multiple iteration passes before 21.3 actually releases.

As you can no doubt tell, we've been going through the motions but PvMP has been overlooked for a while due to our focus on the player side and Mordor.

While adjustments were made for the general bump in power level, the creeps have nevertheless been left behind. They got the same base level bump that the players did, but unsurprisingly, the players stat jumps were compounded by benefits from several sources (base, gear, IL's, essences, traits, audacity, etc), that outpaced the relatively few sources that creeps are designed with.

I want to take some time over the next month or two to make a series of fast passes over the creep dps and toughness sources to bring them back into line and get a better sense of what that compounded factor is so that we can work it into their advancement in future updates. It's much easier to approach PvMP balance from the creep side, because the statistics that make up a monster player are far fewer and I can rapidly iterate on their relative strength very rapidly in a way that I absolutely cannot do with the Freeps.

I will be using a bracketing method, so expect some slightly wild swings on Bullroarer as I work to re-discover some equilibrium. It'll be fun, and hopefully with your feedback we can get the ettenmoors back into a competitive shape.

I will also be looking at trying to get the dps/vitality ratios of the two sides more similar looking, so that one side isn't a huge bag of HP with low DPS and vice versa - it's much easier to manage balance when the two sides are using sets of numbers that at least resemble each other.

First pass will be a pretty major bump to creep DPS, as that is clearly anemic at the moment compared to the NPC vitality in the area. This ought to show up as soon as we begin testing 21.3, but my goal is to make multiple iteration passes before 21.3 actually releases.

-Vastin

Thank you for taking the time to explain the issues and for making a commitment to do something about it soon. I notice that combat can go very fast in the Moors these days which can remove some of the strategy and gamesmanship- i.e. 3 clicks and you are dead.

May I suggest that you also consider audacity dps reduction to extend the fights a bit for BOTH Freeps and Creeps? This gives you two levers to pull as you strive to rebelance things. In any event, I'm sure we all wish you well. God speed sir. God speed!!

It would be really cool if you started off removing crit magnitude from critical corruptions as a starter. (6 corruptions) 90% critical magnitude does not work for creeps at all, since the way they were designed with skills and skill damage, was not intended to work with big critical multipliers. After removing critical multiplier from corruptions, you can start on working with buffing base dmg rather on them, which will make a much more balanced impact from creep dps over time. And removing short fights with RNG critical hit luck.

I will be using a bracketing method, so expect some slightly wild swings on Bullroarer as I work to re-discover some equilibrium. It'll be fun, and hopefully with your feedback we can get the ettenmoors back into a competitive shape. ;

-Vastin

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your time is appreciated and I have full confidence that we can achieve a better balance if we all engage with reasonable expectations. I have a big tribe on Ark that I am happy to volunteer for this effort.

Cohorts- that means you've been voluntold for constructive, non-whining feedback.

Vastin says we'll get some fast passes- so let's make the most of the opportunity we have been given, and not give him reason to regret it. Lamenting what we do not have is worthless, and intractable complainers who don't play anymore should bow out, please.

As you can no doubt tell, we've been going through the motions but PvMP has been overlooked for a while due to our focus on the player side and Mordor.

While adjustments were made for the general bump in power level, the creeps have nevertheless been left behind. They got the same base level bump that the players did, but unsurprisingly, the players stat jumps were compounded by benefits from several sources (base, gear, IL's, essences, traits, audacity, etc), that outpaced the relatively few sources that creeps are designed with.

I want to take some time over the next month or two to make a series of fast passes over the creep dps and toughness sources to bring them back into line and get a better sense of what that compounded factor is so that we can work it into their advancement in future updates. It's much easier to approach PvMP balance from the creep side, because the statistics that make up a monster player are far fewer and I can rapidly iterate on their relative strength very rapidly in a way that I absolutely cannot do with the Freeps.

I will be using a bracketing method, so expect some slightly wild swings on Bullroarer as I work to re-discover some equilibrium. It'll be fun, and hopefully with your feedback we can get the ettenmoors back into a competitive shape.

I will also be looking at trying to get the dps/vitality ratios of the two sides more similar looking, so that one side isn't a huge bag of HP with low DPS and vice versa - it's much easier to manage balance when the two sides are using sets of numbers that at least resemble each other.

First pass will be a pretty major bump to creep DPS, as that is clearly anemic at the moment compared to the NPC vitality in the area. This ought to show up as soon as we begin testing 21.3, but my goal is to make multiple iteration passes before 21.3 actually releases.

-Vastin

I appreciate your communication. I'll see you in Bullroarer soon.
One of the challenges for you in balancing the DPS and Morale from creeps/freeps is gonna be avoiding the One-shot skills. I would love to hear your communication on other things, so please check your PMs

As you can no doubt tell, we've been going through the motions but PvMP has been overlooked for a while due to our focus on the player side and Mordor.

While adjustments were made for the general bump in power level, the creeps have nevertheless been left behind. They got the same base level bump that the players did, but unsurprisingly, the players stat jumps were compounded by benefits from several sources (base, gear, IL's, essences, traits, audacity, etc), that outpaced the relatively few sources that creeps are designed with.

I want to take some time over the next month or two to make a series of fast passes over the creep dps and toughness sources to bring them back into line and get a better sense of what that compounded factor is so that we can work it into their advancement in future updates. It's much easier to approach PvMP balance from the creep side, because the statistics that make up a monster player are far fewer and I can rapidly iterate on their relative strength very rapidly in a way that I absolutely cannot do with the Freeps.

I will be using a bracketing method, so expect some slightly wild swings on Bullroarer as I work to re-discover some equilibrium. It'll be fun, and hopefully with your feedback we can get the ettenmoors back into a competitive shape.

I will also be looking at trying to get the dps/vitality ratios of the two sides more similar looking, so that one side isn't a huge bag of HP with low DPS and vice versa - it's much easier to manage balance when the two sides are using sets of numbers that at least resemble each other.

First pass will be a pretty major bump to creep DPS, as that is clearly anemic at the moment compared to the NPC vitality in the area. This ought to show up as soon as we begin testing 21.3, but my goal is to make multiple iteration passes before 21.3 actually releases.

-Vastin

My best advice: don't do a wild pendulum swing. More than anything else, I want action and that means I want freeps to come out. Creeps don't need that much help, just a little. Also, you seem to focus on DPS above. My warg absolutely doesn't need more DPS, he needs defensive help so he doesn't have to pick between being 1 shot by burgs or 1 shot by hunters or do zero DPS and not get 1 one shot by either. So my second best advice? Make it easy on yourself and just give a few more corruption slots. With the number of gear options freeps have, it's not crazy to give us 6 more slots. I don't play other creep classes unfortunately so I can't say for sure it would be a fix-all for every class but I can honestly say, more corruption slots would solve any current issues for at least the warg class.

1. Base stats for Creeps MUST be buffed, and Corruptions SHOULD be nerfed. Finesse, Resistance, Mitigations, Critical Defense, Critical Rating- all are at HORRIFICALLY low levels (4% finesse without corruptions, where as I was at 22% pre-Mordor). They all need to be buffed to around pre-Mordor numbers, and for Finesse, the Finesse corruptions did nothing, because it requires me to slot ALL 6 to reach the finesse I was at PRE-update. That's far too many valuable slots. We don't need additional corruption slots, either, we just need strong base stats.I did a pretty decent amount of math detailing the percentage numbers that needed increasing for all of these stats in this thread: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...tions-Feedback.

In terms of justification for buffing stats and nerfing corruptions, in the CURRENT build, anyone lacking in Crit Corruptions does hardly ANY damage, anyone lacking in Mitigation corruptions has hardly ANY defense, and those with no Finesse slotted have almost NO Finesse, etc. In terms of Crit/Mitigation, it means you can slap on 6 Pmit and six crit, and have good stats, but be COMPLETELY open to Tactical damage, have no morale slotted, and have no finesse. You can specialize a ton, but it leads to an INCREDIBLE amount of unpredictability, "gimicky-ness," and unhappiness in terms of fair play on BOTH sides.

Buffing main stats and nerfing corruptions to be SMALL customization bonuses would allow for more balanced fights, and prevent EITHER side from feeling cheated, either from a lack of a stat (from a Creep's perspective) or Over-stacking mitigation/crit against a Freep (from the victimized Freep's persepctive). A BIG part of the problem in the Moors now is the massive discrepancy in gear/corruption builds, and the gamble/unpredictability of what to use.

2. Crit Magnitude should be NERFED or REMOVED from Critical corruptions. The intent of the developers to add Critical Magnitude was well-intended, but it's not gone over very well. Creepside was never designed for such high Crit mag, and it left many of the skills on the skillbar feeling useless, and it broke Warg's Bestial Claws and Sudden Maul's auto-crit damage. IF CRIT MAG IS NERFED OR REDUCED, BESTIAL CLAWS/SUDDEN MAUL DO NOT NEED TO BE NERFED. However, if Crit Magnitude remains intact for Creeps, Bestial Claws damage needs to be distributed to other skills (numbers calculated here: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...tealth-Classes).

If Crit Mag from corruptions is nerfed/removed, BASE damage/mastery across all skills for Creeps should be buffed. I have honestly no idea by what % that buff should be by.

3. A few Quality of Life Changes:

1. Please nerf the Morale of Freep NPCs, it's disproportionate to their damage (compared to Creep NPCs for Freeps)
2. Please consider making Audacity armor the only armor allowed for Freeps to wear, or consider some sort of major penalty for PvE armor. You can't balance around Raid gear for Freeps if not all Freeps are wearing Raid Gear.
3. Take a careful look at the damage of Burglars and Hunters. Both are VERY easy to play, and do a LOT of damage. Even with better base stats, Creeps struggle badly with these classes.
4. If Creeps do get love, consider nerfing Defiler heals. I know this one won't be popular with Creeps, but Defilers HPS is insane in Mordor- the only thing holding them back is the Mitigation dilemma. If that is fixed, for balance it may be worth examining Defiler heals.

I'm sure I'll think of some more things as time goes on. Thank you Vastin/Cordovan!

I just came back to this game after many years away and was hoping to see some action in the PvMP zones (I wasn't even aware Osgiliath was a thing when I came back) but on Crickhollow it's been pretty dead creep side. I can't really talk about strengths or weaknesses but I hope that whatever you do can revitalize this portion of the game which I used to enjoy very much. I will say I am very glad to see this post from the team wanting to improve things. Gives me hope that you care about this aspect of the game and therefore makes me more willing to be a return customer.

As you can no doubt tell, we've been going through the motions but PvMP has been overlooked for a while due to our focus on the player side and Mordor.

While adjustments were made for the general bump in power level, the creeps have nevertheless been left behind. They got the same base level bump that the players did, but unsurprisingly, the players stat jumps were compounded by benefits from several sources (base, gear, IL's, essences, traits, audacity, etc), that outpaced the relatively few sources that creeps are designed with.

I want to take some time over the next month or two to make a series of fast passes over the creep dps and toughness sources to bring them back into line and get a better sense of what that compounded factor is so that we can work it into their advancement in future updates. It's much easier to approach PvMP balance from the creep side, because the statistics that make up a monster player are far fewer and I can rapidly iterate on their relative strength very rapidly in a way that I absolutely cannot do with the Freeps.

I will be using a bracketing method, so expect some slightly wild swings on Bullroarer as I work to re-discover some equilibrium. It'll be fun, and hopefully with your feedback we can get the ettenmoors back into a competitive shape.

I will also be looking at trying to get the dps/vitality ratios of the two sides more similar looking, so that one side isn't a huge bag of HP with low DPS and vice versa - it's much easier to manage balance when the two sides are using sets of numbers that at least resemble each other.

First pass will be a pretty major bump to creep DPS, as that is clearly anemic at the moment compared to the NPC vitality in the area. This ought to show up as soon as we begin testing 21.3, but my goal is to make multiple iteration passes before 21.3 actually releases.

-Vastin

Hey Vastin,

I don't think problem is at the moment lack of creep DPS but way how broken freep DPS is. Sure if freeps get extra reduction from audacity it will be fine. I can still get absolutely destroyed in few seconds on light classes or kill myself in few seconds freep player.

At the moment scout class and CC class have pretty much strongest DPS and reavers are seriously being totally useless.

In my opinion one of things creep really lack is any kind of decent AoE to counter champions and wardens on freep side. In my opinion reaver needs big DPS increase on AoE skills and if you have time you should really change how wrath works. Award it to give massive AoE damage bonus instead of morale heal. DPS class needs damage bonuses, not massive self heals which is just useful in solo play which ettenmoors aren't balanced at.

Your comment about changing vitality/dps ratios. Does this mean in practice that creeps receive nerf to morales and boost to defences (with audacity I guess)? I would really like that since I'm sick and tired of creeps having 2-3x freep morale when both sides could be doing similar numbers with simple audacity damage reduction changes and having about/closer to same morale pools.

After that one of biggest problems on ettenmoors at this moment is how long fights last. On bigger and smaller scale (unless getting stuck to heal battles). I have spoken with many players from best on servers to totally casual PvP players and one of biggest fundamental issues is at the moment the speed of fight. Fights used to last on 1v1 good 30-60+ seconds. Now fights end in 5-10 seconds. This is too short time for MMO and it means that in groups with 2-3 excellent DPS players it's impossible to keep players alive as a healer (especially creeps). PvP in group fights should be long struggle between DPS, coordinating targeting and switching targets before heals change target. Instead of switch and nuke in 5 seconds (mainly freep side but creeps can do similar things in right environment).

Originally Posted by Seodric

Wow some good news finally.

It would be really cool if you started off removing crit magnitude from critical corruptions as a starter. (6 corruptions) 90% critical magnitude does not work for creeps at all, since the way they were designed with skills and skill damage, was not intended to work with big critical multipliers. After removing critical multiplier from corruptions, you can start on working with buffing base dmg rather on them, which will make a much more balanced impact from creep dps over time. And removing short fights with RNG critical hit luck.

Thank you!

Please do this. Creeps have been balanced for stable DPS, not bursty RNG. U19 really broke creeps to state where if you don't crit you do weak damage, yet if you crit you are borderline OP with hits - see wargs here with their 100% crit chance - which should be absolutely nerffed if you look at nerffing some skills.

I don't think problem is at the moment lack of creep DPS but way how broken freep DPS is. Sure if freeps get extra reduction from audacity it will be fine. I can still get absolutely destroyed in few seconds on light classes or kill myself in few seconds freep player.

At the moment scout class and CC class have pretty much strongest DPS and reavers are seriously being totally useless.

In my opinion one of things creep really lack is any kind of decent AoE to counter champions and wardens on freep side. In my opinion reaver needs big DPS increase on AoE skills and if you have time you should really change how wrath works. Award it to give massive AoE damage bonus instead of morale heal. DPS class needs damage bonuses, not massive self heals which is just useful in solo play which ettenmoors aren't balanced at.

Your comment about changing vitality/dps ratios. Does this mean in practice that creeps receive nerf to morales and boost to defences (with audacity I guess)? I would really like that since I'm sick and tired of creeps having 2-3x freep morale when both sides could be doing similar numbers with simple audacity damage reduction changes and having about/closer to same morale pools.

After that one of biggest problems on ettenmoors at this moment is how long fights last. On bigger and smaller scale (unless getting stuck to heal battles). I have spoken with many players from best on servers to totally casual PvP players and one of biggest fundamental issues is at the moment the speed of fight. Fights used to last on 1v1 good 30-60+ seconds. Now fights end in 5-10 seconds. This is too short time for MMO and it means that in groups with 2-3 excellent DPS players it's impossible to keep players alive as a healer (especially creeps). PvP in group fights should be long struggle between DPS, coordinating targeting and switching targets before heals change target. Instead of switch and nuke in 5 seconds (mainly freep side but creeps can do similar things in right environment).

Please do this. Creeps have been balanced for stable DPS, not bursty RNG. U19 really broke creeps to state where if you don't crit you do weak damage, yet if you crit you are borderline OP with hits - see wargs here with their 100% crit chance - which should be absolutely nerffed if you look at nerffing some skills.

Removing Crit mag would be the only nerf Warg would need. I agree with essentially everything said here.

If you really want help you'll listen to people who play both sides of the table. People who can and do offer unbiased opinions on what works and what dont. Im all for giving that but if you're gonna cut out what you dont wanna hear then we cant help.

You have to go back to basics. Altering numbers and multipliers wont cut it. Look at the skills, look at the mechanics. Start there. Thats where the system is flawed and so hard to balance. You have systems that sometimes work, dont work or work too well(diminishing returns). Look at how classes are deriving their dps. Look at how an infant can repeat the same thing. Now spread that same dps over a more plentiful number of skills(wargs hunters burgs).

Captain-General Ughidontknow...Tripso rnk 6 burg...Izeatzfreepz rnk 8 warg....Yells rnk 10 warleader
Leader of The Hobbit Syndicate
"Everyone wants to be the hero and no one wants to be support"

This is some really amazing news, and I am excited to see what you are going to do for us. A few notes to start off with.

Creeps

Base stats have not been scaled nearly enough, mitigations/finesse need to be higher.

Damage does not need to be increased much on any class except Reaver.

Corruptions should make less of a difference relative to base stats. Currently, traiting 3 of each mitigation is a necessity. Scale down the corruptions and make the set bonuses on 2 and 4 equipped, rather than 3 and 6.

Creep side NPCs still die like flies, other than Keep Tyrants (by virtue of tyrants being lvl 106). Even Outpost Tyrants are easily dispatched.

Reaver
Used to be a tanky class with high burst. In the current Moors environment, its survivability is laughable, and the burst potential is completely gone. It needs a significant damage boost. Ravage (this should be the main DPS skill), bleeds (especially Mutilation) and Severing Strike would be the skills that need to be increased to gain more consistent damage. If you want to opt to increase its burst potential, then increase Impale damage, but also increase Ravage damage, because Ravage is terrible right now.
Perhaps it needs a reduction to self healing, if its DPS is increased, however.

Blackarrow
The overall state of Blackarrows is quite alright, and I wouldn't change much about it, after their base stats get scaled.

Warg
Warg needs a rework, as you are well aware. Its damage almost solely comes from Bestial Claws, Maul and Eye Gouge. Details on how to redistribute damage to keep the DPS roughly the same (but slightly less) can be found here. This thread in its later pages also contains calculations that show the DPS would remain almost the same.

Weavers
Rely too heavily on two skills: Tainted Kiss and Mephitic Kiss. Reduce the initial damage of these skills, and add damage to Poison Spray, Lethal Kiss and Drink Deep. Moreover, Toxin is wildly out of control, and needs to be reduced by a fair amount (I would argue up to 40%). The max power reduction on Latent Poison is also too potent.
All in all, weavers are a debuffing class, not a DPS class.

Defilers
Heals are definitely too strong, especially if their base stats are to be scaled up. Fertile Slime needs to be nerfed slightly (~10-15%), and Fell Restoration needs a similar treatment, perhaps even a 30% reduction on it would be appropriate.

War-leaders
Debuffs/buffs from banners need to be tuned properly. Their damage is pretty abysmal, and since their healing isn't over the top either, one of those two could use a bit of an increase. Overall not in a bad state, however.

Freeps

Scaled freeps are broken, but you are aware of this.

Find a way to enforce PvMP gear/jewellery, so that you can create a stat template for freeps. This way, it will become so much easier for you to balance PvMP in the future.

Hunters/Burglars need a damage reduction in PvP.

Skills that return morale on being hit need to be looked at (Guardian: Bring on the Pain, Beorning: Thickened Hide)

Disable store buffs in PvMP (I guess this applies to creeps as well).

This is but a small list compared to the ideas that I and others have had over the course of the past few years, but I hope that you will at least take some of these ideas into consideration.

This is some really amazing news, and I am excited to see what you are going to do for us. A few notes to start off with.

Creeps

Base stats have not been scaled nearly enough, mitigations/finesse need to be higher.

Damage does not need to be increased much on any class except Reaver.

Corruptions should make less of a difference relative to base stats. Currently, traiting 3 of each mitigation is a necessity. Scale down the corruptions and make the set bonuses on 2 and 4 equipped, rather than 3 and 6.

Creep side NPCs still die like flies, other than Keep Tyrants (by virtue of tyrants being lvl 106). Even Outpost Tyrants are easily dispatched.

Reaver
Used to be a tanky class with high burst. In the current Moors environment, its survivability is laughable, and the burst potential is completely gone. It needs a significant damage boost. Ravage (this should be the main DPS skill), bleeds (especially Mutilation) and Severing Strike would be the skills that need to be increased to gain more consistent damage. If you want to opt to increase its burst potential, then increase Impale damage, but also increase Ravage damage, because Ravage is terrible right now.
Perhaps it needs a reduction to self healing, if its DPS is increased, however.

Blackarrow
The overall state of Blackarrows is quite alright, and I wouldn't change much about it, after their base stats get scaled.

Warg
Warg needs a rework, as you are well aware. Its damage almost solely comes from Bestial Claws, Maul and Eye Gouge. Details on how to redistribute damage to keep the DPS roughly the same (but slightly less) can be found here. This thread in its later pages also contains calculations that show the DPS would remain almost the same.

Weavers
Rely too heavily on two skills: Tainted Kiss and Mephitic Kiss. Reduce the initial damage of these skills, and add damage to Poison Spray, Lethal Kiss and Drink Deep. Moreover, Toxin is wildly out of control, and needs to be reduced by a fair amount (I would argue up to 40%). The max power reduction on Latent Poison is also too potent.
All in all, weavers are a debuffing class, not a DPS class.

Defilers
Heals are definitely too strong, especially if their base stats are to be scaled up. Fertile Slime needs to be nerfed slightly (~10-15%), and Fell Restoration needs a similar treatment, perhaps even a 30% reduction on it would be appropriate.

War-leaders
Debuffs/buffs from banners need to be tuned properly. Their damage is pretty abysmal, and since their healing isn't over the top either, one of those two could use a bit of an increase. Overall not in a bad state, however.

Freeps

Scaled freeps are broken, but you are aware of this.

Find a way to enforce PvMP gear/jewellery, so that you can create a stat template for freeps. This way, it will become so much easier for you to balance PvMP in the future.

Hunters/Burglars need a damage reduction in PvP.

Skills that return morale on being hit need to be looked at (Guardian: Bring on the Pain, Beorning: Thickened Hide)

Disable store buffs in PvMP (I guess this applies to creeps as well).

This is but a small list compared to the ideas that I and others have had over the course of the past few years, but I hope that you will at least take some of these ideas into consideration.

Very well put and agree with this 100% with the small note that Bestial Claws/Maul would be fine if they nerf Crit Mag.

Also VASTIN

Many of the creep racial traits haven't been updated, and still have level 100 cap-ish stats. Worth taking a look at if you have the time!

I kept my initial post short, and this will be short aswell. Agree with what Spilo, Siipperi and Giliodor have said so far! These are good general guidances to how to tackle the problems that is in moors atm for sure.

This is some really amazing news, and I am excited to see what you are going to do for us. A few notes to start off with.

Creeps

Base stats have not been scaled nearly enough, mitigations/finesse need to be higher.

Damage does not need to be increased much on any class except Reaver.

Corruptions should make less of a difference relative to base stats. Currently, traiting 3 of each mitigation is a necessity. Scale down the corruptions and make the set bonuses on 2 and 4 equipped, rather than 3 and 6.

Creep side NPCs still die like flies, other than Keep Tyrants (by virtue of tyrants being lvl 106). Even Outpost Tyrants are easily dispatched.

Reaver
Used to be a tanky class with high burst. In the current Moors environment, its survivability is laughable, and the burst potential is completely gone. It needs a significant damage boost. Ravage (this should be the main DPS skill), bleeds (especially Mutilation) and Severing Strike would be the skills that need to be increased to gain more consistent damage. If you want to opt to increase its burst potential, then increase Impale damage, but also increase Ravage damage, because Ravage is terrible right now.
Perhaps it needs a reduction to self healing, if its DPS is increased, however.

Blackarrow
The overall state of Blackarrows is quite alright, and I wouldn't change much about it, after their base stats get scaled.

Warg
Warg needs a rework, as you are well aware. Its damage almost solely comes from Bestial Claws, Maul and Eye Gouge. Details on how to redistribute damage to keep the DPS roughly the same (but slightly less) can be found here. This thread in its later pages also contains calculations that show the DPS would remain almost the same.

Weavers
Rely too heavily on two skills: Tainted Kiss and Mephitic Kiss. Reduce the initial damage of these skills, and add damage to Poison Spray, Lethal Kiss and Drink Deep. Moreover, Toxin is wildly out of control, and needs to be reduced by a fair amount (I would argue up to 40%). The max power reduction on Latent Poison is also too potent.
All in all, weavers are a debuffing class, not a DPS class.

Defilers
Heals are definitely too strong, especially if their base stats are to be scaled up. Fertile Slime needs to be nerfed slightly (~10-15%), and Fell Restoration needs a similar treatment, perhaps even a 30% reduction on it would be appropriate.

War-leaders
Debuffs/buffs from banners need to be tuned properly. Their damage is pretty abysmal, and since their healing isn't over the top either, one of those two could use a bit of an increase. Overall not in a bad state, however.

Freeps

Scaled freeps are broken, but you are aware of this.

Find a way to enforce PvMP gear/jewellery, so that you can create a stat template for freeps. This way, it will become so much easier for you to balance PvMP in the future.

Hunters/Burglars need a damage reduction in PvP.

Skills that return morale on being hit need to be looked at (Guardian: Bring on the Pain, Beorning: Thickened Hide)

Disable store buffs in PvMP (I guess this applies to creeps as well).

This is but a small list compared to the ideas that I and others have had over the course of the past few years, but I hope that you will at least take some of these ideas into consideration.

These ideas are great.

I too agree that freeps should only be able to wear moors armor. How to go about doing that so freeps aren't naked until they get the required amount of comms to get all 6 pieces of armor and some jewelry, I don't really know what could be done. Anyone have any suggestions regarding how to implement moors only gear?

As you can no doubt tell, we've been going through the motions but PvMP has been overlooked for a while due to our focus on the player side and Mordor.

While adjustments were made for the general bump in power level, the creeps have nevertheless been left behind. They got the same base level bump that the players did, but unsurprisingly, the players stat jumps were compounded by benefits from several sources (base, gear, IL's, essences, traits, audacity, etc), that outpaced the relatively few sources that creeps are designed with.

I want to take some time over the next month or two to make a series of fast passes over the creep dps and toughness sources to bring them back into line and get a better sense of what that compounded factor is so that we can work it into their advancement in future updates. It's much easier to approach PvMP balance from the creep side, because the statistics that make up a monster player are far fewer and I can rapidly iterate on their relative strength very rapidly in a way that I absolutely cannot do with the Freeps.

I will be using a bracketing method, so expect some slightly wild swings on Bullroarer as I work to re-discover some equilibrium. It'll be fun, and hopefully with your feedback we can get the ettenmoors back into a competitive shape.

I will also be looking at trying to get the dps/vitality ratios of the two sides more similar looking, so that one side isn't a huge bag of HP with low DPS and vice versa - it's much easier to manage balance when the two sides are using sets of numbers that at least resemble each other.

First pass will be a pretty major bump to creep DPS, as that is clearly anemic at the moment compared to the NPC vitality in the area. This ought to show up as soon as we begin testing 21.3, but my goal is to make multiple iteration passes before 21.3 actually releases.

-Vastin

So after the big fail with ashes gear he came here to give some hope cause of a big cancellation of subs..../sigh

First of all, thank you for the time you will devote into this and finally let s hope it will be a long term viable solution. And now a few VERY general thoughts:

i) how can people talk about bestial claws nerf when we have hnts doing this (note here: 3 defences , 3 mits of each traited,R15 full audacity) [10/10 01:04:56 AM] ***** scored a devastating hit with Improved Merciful Shot on ********* for 91,715 Beleriand damage to Morale.

ii) you should consider mixing stats in corruptions. Remove finesse and resistance corruptions and add them on another one, make let s say a combined corruption with several stats and more appealing bonuses. Just like essences.

iii) if beornings get healed on TH with dots from weavers, then toxic carapace needs to reflect dots. If freeps don t like it again then nerf TH because spamming it all the time is exactly what we see in fights. Also here: we need to have a creep class that can drain/exhaust wrath on beornings faster just like for example power on other freep classes.

iv) after each update we mainly see a pure morale increase on creeps. You need to do more after each update than 15k more morale due to the level cap increase. It looks poor and a very "fast-food" alike solution.

v) if weavers are a debuffing class or cc then the induction times for the skills need to be reduced by 50%. Also dps needs a 40% increase with the current situation in the moors.

vi) high rank creeps and freeps need better bonuses acc to their ranks. The differences on passives are simply ridiculous and need to be increased significantly. A R15 creep/freep must be expected to make some difference due to its passive rank stats during a fight.

vii) reaver is by far the class that needs a dps increase. It has been left out way too long.

viii) remove osgiliath map, no one uses it except clubbers. It was challenging for 1 month then we got bored of it, i.e. Running back and forth on a bridge and expect a flank from left or right is supposed to be challenging? Think about a 2019 release for mordor as a pvp zone to keep people who have finished the initial Mordor release still interested in it.

ix) again on weaver : the trapdoor sanctuary is severely outdated and cannot outheal any dots currently. Initial heal must be increased by 30% as well as the dots afterwards. It must not be interrupted anymore as well.

Dev talked about a fast balance pass and people talk about adding creep armour. or offer a thousand things to change. It's funny because some of these same people have said in the past that asking for too many reactionary changes is what ruined pvmp.

Just keep the tweak simple. Give creeps more corruption slots and let creeps work it out for themselves. It's so simple and takes almost zero developer time (I imagine the only thing that would take time is reworking the trait interface).

I have not logged on live for almost 4 months, but my first suggestion would be: for moors to be even remotely worthwhile again, it can't be one-sided fixes. You have to make some changes for Creeps but also consider implementing changes for Freeps. Even if they were Moors only changes, it would make an astronomical difference in benefiting game play:

1) Barrage needs to be addressed. The fact that it scales by 50% each time is out of wack. A straight nerf might be too much, but at least look at its mechanic of instant damage burst, paired with pen shot. Perhaps make it less likely to bypass mits, or something similar. Honestly I think a straight base damage nerf is probably best, if the +50% scaling is kept.

2) Consider toning down Merciful Shot critical damage a large margin, particularly when in blue line. A 100k dev shot against a creep (which isn't unheard of) would become 25-40k (with a 60-75% reduction), which would still be a significant hit (I'd argue it deserves a further nerf, but the QQ that would result by anything more would be through the roof). Perhaps Audacity would provide this -incoming crit damage, not sure?

As someone who mains a burglar, I was not a fan of the recent rework. Burglars were fine at 100 cap, but now Coupe De Grace and Cunning Attack are practically the only skills I see burgs use.

3) Make CDG show up in combat log when attacked from stealth. As an attacker, I want to see what I hit for, but as the recipient, I'd also like to see what I got hit by...
4) Burglars dust in the eyes needs to not stack. Almost 80% miss chance against 2 burglars is ridiculous.
5) Cunning Attack needs to be considered for a rework as well. I was being hit for upwards of 20k per tick on BR over 34s on a fully mit traited warg.

6) The damage bursts of Red Line champion with Devastating Strike and Remorseless Strike seem to crit almost every time. I get that they are supposed to be difficult to B/P/E, but its a little overboard. At least make them able to be avoided every now and then.

For Creeps:

1) Toxin needs to not be able to crit, and should not be useable as often. 300 power on a non crit is too much already.
2) Remove the power debuff from latent poison. A 7s stun is plenty.
3) REMOVE finesse corruptions, and add finesse PASSIVELY to creeps. Annoying to have 6 more corruptions (with NO set bonus, mind you) in the SAME 12 slots as before.

4) DPS for Creeps against NPCs needs to be increased - you used to be able to 3 man the keep in OR, but nowadays that is a stretch to pull off (or last I tried on BR anyway, with 2 wargs and a defiler).

5) Reavers need some sort of CC. They have 0 stuns and no daze. Increase bleeds significantly as well.
6) Wrath needs a re work.

7) BAs need higher trap damage, and Skirmisher Stance should allow for no inductions on traps. Whistling Shafts has an awkward animation too. Fire Arrow should be able to stack 2x for each BA.

8) Weavers Web the Earth needs duration increased by 45s. It often expires as soon as set down (current duration is only 15s, cooldown of 1 minute). Make it last as long as sticky tar to actually be a hindrance.

9) Creep Mits are ATROCIOUS. Its pick your poison of what you want to die from. There should be at least some passive mits on each class.

10) B/P/E - Creeps have practically 0% of this. Mits can only help so much. Boost the racial traits avoidances, add passive avoidances per rank. IMO, R15 creeps should be maxed B/P/E (13% of each). Start off at 5% B/P/E, add 0.5% each rank, but maybe 1% at rank 6 or something. If its more of an evasion class, like warg, add partials for racial traits, same goes for WLs with block, and BAs with parry.

can help ya guys from a reaver/captain perspective, if you guys do look for something simalir like the times of lvl65/75 cap.
At 65, the reaver didn't have impale at all, the skill was later added on by turbine, as an add-up to the dps of the reaver. The reaver was lacking great amounts of overall dps, so they made is easier by adding up impale, which does x dmg by x bleeds and ignores like so much % mitigation.

your choice to either remove impale and bring back reaver overall dps on top, or keep impale in and avoid a 2-shot on freeps. Because at lvl 75 great river expansion, the issue was that the impale hit was too hard, this resulted in dropping freeps so low, that the execution skill became instantly available, at the end, the freep was basically a 2shot (if the reaver got all his bleeds on the freep).

at 65 however, pvp was much less oriented around dots, rather just skills with no additional addups like induction duration and such. The stalker class had for example no flayer stance, or shadow.

So with this out of the way, I rather decided to get a bit more about moors in general

At first, the goal ya guys want.

1. The goals ya guys want, and I assume all player want, is a healthy ettenmoors with no outbalanced stuff or dps that goes insanely through the roof.
For example : no hunters that 2 shot creeps, no captains that outheal creep dps with revealingmark and addup of their heals, or minstrels taking on a 24 creep raid.

2. You'd want a good clear view, you want to keep things simple, toomuch buffs there and then there will truly make things outbalanced.

3. Players want a dynamic gameplay, so no push fights between grams and Lugazag for example.

4. I understand you guys(as for SSG) want to make Osgilliath more usable aswell (after all the work that has been put in), so the strategic I got will probably clear the path for certain people aswell, that do like to play in osgilliath. However, I cannot say if the lagg issues can be solved, this is something SSG has to look at, either this cannot be solved probably due the large amount on entities in the area that do fill up the RAM.

5. As today, people do use armour outside the moors, because the armour outside the moors is simply better, the moors armour cannot simply match the equality to the new armour that's being released in PvE, this will be solved aswell.

If I'd miss any points, those will be added up later here and addressed in the solution I'd workout.

My strategic plan to the solution

So as seen above, we got quite some problems and all moors players are aware of this, some might not even know how much changed in compare to how things once were, because they joined later into the game.

Balance

This topic might be the most important one,
as all players have trouble with balance and the amount of QQ on the forums explains itself quite well to it.

So at first:

While adjustments were made for the general bump in power level, the creeps have nevertheless been left behind. They got the same base level bump that the players did, but unsurprisingly, the players stat jumps were compounded by benefits from several sources (base, gear, IL's, essences, traits, audacity, etc), that outpaced the relatively few sources that creeps are designed with.

I want to take some time over the next month or two to make a series of fast passes over the creep dps and toughness sources to bring them back into line and get a better sense of what that compounded factor is so that we can work it into their advancement in future updates. It's much easier to approach PvMP balance from the creep side, because the statistics that make up a monster player are far fewer and I can rapidly iterate on their relative strength very rapidly in a way that I absolutely cannot do with the Freeps.

As Vastin did mention : "because the statistics that make up a monster player are far fewer and I can rapidly iterate on their relative strength very rapidly in a way that I absolutely cannot do with the Freeps."

I understand his point of view, freeps are way more complicated then creeps,
thus touching a freep class will have significant impact on the coregameplay as PvE, but I got a solution around this.

Solution(s)

As I once noticed that certain things aren't available in the moors, why not using the same system to balance things out? For exmaple a warsteed, ofcourse we dont want this in the moors, so this was excluded.
So, why don't we exclude PvE armour out of the moors? We have known over several expansions that PvE armour is significantly better in the moors then the ettenset itself.

First of all, PvE armour is needed inorder to get PvP armour, without PvE set you cannot gain PvP set easily. So this can either be solved by adding a way to gain commendation points outside the moors or increase the rewards on questing in the moors / making the armour free, which I assume, wont happen.

So, you could remove commendations and go back to Destiny points, this was obtainable through questing, killing in PvP and leveling a character in the game. For every level, you did gain destiny points. This way, players still need to buy the moors set from a certain value.

As we know, PvE sets are "mostly" better then PvP sets in the last expansions that came out, I first wanna address this, because this might solve the issue of outbalanced classes.

The solution is, we make OP PvP sets, yes, PvP sets with ridiculous stats that would totally blaster every mob out of mordor. But here comes the trick, you want to DISABLE the possibility of using this set anywhere else besides moors, or osgilliath PvP. This way, you basically force every freep to use this set, inorder to avoid outbalanced stuff from certain sets, or touching PvE armour which results in issues in PvE. You simply implement stronger sets in the moors.

How will those sets balance stuff out if the classes are broken on the core?

As we've known, hunter DPS is absolutely through the roof, so the idea here is to not base armour on each armour tier (light, medium and heavy), but rather class. You'd make one table for heavy, medium and light, then lower the stats of the class that is being OP in a certain way (hunters with dps for example, or burglars oneshotting creeps) But you still want to leave enough room between PvE set and PvP set open, inorder to avoid the use of PvE sets again.

We did also notice that critical magnitude has become quite an issue in PvP, this is hard to solve, but you could make special PvP LI's that are again ONLY usable in moors and disabled in PvE. Those weapons don't need to be LI inorder to get proper balance. But if you truly want to keep them in, base the new etten weapons based on the idea of the armour sets, pointed above, nerf the critical magnitude on certain classes (LEGACIES IN PARTICULAR) and avoid the possibility of using PvE weapons over PvP.

Either fix a free weapon for rank 0, which cannot be used outside PvP ofcourse, then bring in purchasable weapons based on rank to the moors, like we had at the older days of lvl 30-40cap I believe. The Idea was already there several years ago, but was overwritten by new LI's and such coming in.

- Avoid essence slots on PvP sets
- Remove Audacity, its completly useless and doesn't help at all, the idea of disabling moors set outside the PvP zones is much better. Then bringing in sets with insane stats, but still nerfed on certain classes will balance stuff out to creeps.
- Avoid high crit magnitude on certain classes like burglar and hunter, not all classes are this OP and if you make creeps that strong that it's capable of matching the hunter, certain classes like captains and lore-masters will fall behind. This is most likely solved by a ranking weapon tier system as seen in the image with cloaks, which could be rescaled aswell.

Clean stuff up

Yup, there's so much difference between moors at cap 60 and cap 105 for example. One of the good things was that not much buffs were involved into the game. You could workout the moors simalir to the state as it was at those times, as we already have a simalir idea on the equippment as mentioned under balance. The solution will also solve the issues related towards Osgilliath PvMP

Solution(s)

At first, you want to keep the infamy/renown buff gain minimal, the reason for this is explained later. We remove the boosts from Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw, this causes to drop the total gain of infamy by 40% (as those 2 keeps will keep essential without buff).
The fragments and Delving of Frór could be adjusted aswell, to a lower % on infame/renown gain.

Outposts

Then we come to outposts, yes those bloody things that speed up fights and cause to boost classes that are dps based insanely and cause freeps to focus pacific on mitigations inorder slow down the fight duration towards the mastery gain from those.
And just for the fact that 3,4k mastery isn't gonna buff freeps much in compare to the way it buffs damage for creeps, so get rid of it.
But of course we wanna keep outposts still essential to the ettenmoors, so I'd say, boost the infamy/renown gain buffs to those outposts in compensation towards the buffs of fror and keeps, you want to keep the infamy/renown gain in the end the same as max % as in Osgilliath to equal it out with moors.
This also avoids the massive QQ about missing outposts in Osgilliath.

Skills and unscaled/unnecessary buffs

The ettenmoors contains lots of unscaled items, but also creep skills in particular. For example Reaver's time-out, I'd suggest you look at, because those skills have never been touched since cap75.

For me, this is purely an idea, but you could look at removing stuff that only did dug hole deeper (by Turbine), by this I mean for example : Impale, shadow stance, flayer, catch prey etc.
I've honestly no idea if you guys still got data on old class data like freeps/creeps, but those might come in handy in converting things to how they once were in a new jacket.
Because the adds like impale and such did cause mature problems on the balance table at the time, also for the fact that Toxin does for example actually make critical hits on drains, which isn't supposed to happen. The addon for skills on much classes caused quite a lot of friction and truly did make too much advantage over other classes.

Dynamic Gameplay

Last but not least, we got dynamic gameplay, which is also quite a mature issue in the moors. These problems caused lots of players to quit the moors (if not the game) and still annoys people today. Here I'd talk about the moors itself, where buildings are standing, outposts, backdoors and yes, camps.

Solution(s)

THE SPAWNS ON THIS MAP SHOULD BE IGNORED

Backdoors

Backdoors, yes those disgraceful things that are the most annoying(to keep things nice) thing in the ettenmoors, this "thing" has been addressed thousands of times by tons of players, but I will make it once more clear to you, remove this piece of trash, because it truly does ruin the PvP, it causes not only camping, but also push fights between GV - TR and Gram - LG, moors is so much space and it shouldn't be used as a push fight area. If you guys think push fights are a good idea, you can drop that right now, cuz it only causes zerg and raidbaby's running over soloplayers and creates chickensplayers. Some might know what I mean by this, pointless healing when standing near a spawn at the oneshotterbase.

Camps

So, for the 2 camps, those 2 should be placed back at their place as it once was. The only thing that should slightly be adjusted is the orc camp. Yes, it will cause bridge camping, but atleast you will have multiple paths in the water to cross over. As it also doesnt involve any oneshotter, the camps are a nice place as fallbackpoint from a raid attempt on TA for example, the space is open, so lots of opportunity to get around the bridge. At this moment, those places are empty and unused, nobody crosses over that place. Freeps will walk with horse over TA through the water and Creeps will pass over the same path, or port with a map.

Also, remove the Delving of Fror entrance at the camps.

My honest opinion towards solutions

At this moment, you cannot nerf classes damage output like for example:

"NERF HUNTER BARRAGE DMG BY 50% PLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

This sht wont work, because they still need to be essential towards PvE, so that's why I've thought about possible solutions which are totally out of the box. You can come up with stat changes in %, but this will only dig the hole deeper, things need to be cleaned up and rollbacked to how it once was, clean, not toomuch sht like boost this, nerf that, because not only I get tired from this, but I also believe Turbine and SSG did/do.

Even if you only boost Creepside based on freep side, you will cause classes to fallback, like I earlier stated. This includes for example : Lore-masters, Lightning/Fire RK's, redyellow minstrels, guards.
Those classes stated above cannot possibly match a hunter, or burglar's in general, so basing a creep class on lets say the hunter will cause classes like this to suffer from the hunter his outbalance.

I hope I did make something clear, you could look at this video and then I'd ask ya guys to look at the buff/debuff bar (yes I know theres gearswapping involved), but here ranks still DID matter a lot.

looks clean, right?

will prob edit my post later on and make a thread about it.

Imo, you cannot fast-balance stuff that's so broken, it truly needs redesign now thanks to the changes that have been put down to the classes over the years.

Just listen to siipperi, Giliodor, and Spilo because they are extremely competent and knowledgeable players who know what they are talking about. Everything else in this thread is redundant or irrelevant at this point.

VASTIN PLEASE DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT listen to the loud freepside casuals who do not understand creep classes at all and complain about stuff like "macroing".

This is some really amazing news, and I am excited to see what you are going to do for us. A few notes to start off with.

Creeps

Base stats have not been scaled nearly enough, mitigations/finesse need to be higher.

Damage does not need to be increased much on any class except Reaver.

Corruptions should make less of a difference relative to base stats. Currently, traiting 3 of each mitigation is a necessity. Scale down the corruptions and make the set bonuses on 2 and 4 equipped, rather than 3 and 6.

Creep side NPCs still die like flies, other than Keep Tyrants (by virtue of tyrants being lvl 106). Even Outpost Tyrants are easily dispatched.

Reaver
Used to be a tanky class with high burst. In the current Moors environment, its survivability is laughable, and the burst potential is completely gone. It needs a significant damage boost. Ravage (this should be the main DPS skill), bleeds (especially Mutilation) and Severing Strike would be the skills that need to be increased to gain more consistent damage. If you want to opt to increase its burst potential, then increase Impale damage, but also increase Ravage damage, because Ravage is terrible right now.
Perhaps it needs a reduction to self healing, if its DPS is increased, however.

Blackarrow
The overall state of Blackarrows is quite alright, and I wouldn't change much about it, after their base stats get scaled.

Warg
Warg needs a rework, as you are well aware. Its damage almost solely comes from Bestial Claws, Maul and Eye Gouge. Details on how to redistribute damage to keep the DPS roughly the same (but slightly less) can be found here. This thread in its later pages also contains calculations that show the DPS would remain almost the same.

Weavers
Rely too heavily on two skills: Tainted Kiss and Mephitic Kiss. Reduce the initial damage of these skills, and add damage to Poison Spray, Lethal Kiss and Drink Deep. Moreover, Toxin is wildly out of control, and needs to be reduced by a fair amount (I would argue up to 40%). The max power reduction on Latent Poison is also too potent.
All in all, weavers are a debuffing class, not a DPS class.

Defilers
Heals are definitely too strong, especially if their base stats are to be scaled up. Fertile Slime needs to be nerfed slightly (~10-15%), and Fell Restoration needs a similar treatment, perhaps even a 30% reduction on it would be appropriate.

War-leaders
Debuffs/buffs from banners need to be tuned properly. Their damage is pretty abysmal, and since their healing isn't over the top either, one of those two could use a bit of an increase. Overall not in a bad state, however.

Freeps

Scaled freeps are broken, but you are aware of this.

Find a way to enforce PvMP gear/jewellery, so that you can create a stat template for freeps. This way, it will become so much easier for you to balance PvMP in the future.

Hunters/Burglars need a damage reduction in PvP.

Skills that return morale on being hit need to be looked at (Guardian: Bring on the Pain, Beorning: Thickened Hide)

Disable store buffs in PvMP (I guess this applies to creeps as well).

This is but a small list compared to the ideas that I and others have had over the course of the past few years, but I hope that you will at least take some of these ideas into consideration.

i agree with all of this but i'd like to add for defilers: in combat res. i think it is really needed for the main creep healing class ?
also making backdoors unusable while in combat would be really good idea too.